The Luck Index: Season 1, Episode 7 - "Like a Rocket Ship"

Watching Luck with open ears is important. The dialogue is a wrinkly, churning thing. Sometimes you may need to rewind a scene to grasp intent. Occasionally, you'll need to turn to Google. Attuning to the voices, voices full of crag or stammer or thick with accent, can sometimes detract from story. What hasn't yet been said about Luck is the surprising sprawl. The tracks at Santa Anita or Ace Bernstein's hotel room or Mike's yacht may seem like small constellations in a cozy little galaxy. But because there is so little crossover, very little connectivity among these stars, it's a wonder how a single episode is paced, toggling between the 13 main players, an increasing number of ancillary figures, and three full-time equine stars. Last night's episode was perhaps the most fascinating example yet, if only because very little happened. There are just a handful of episodes left in this first season, so the lack of progress is surprising. But there are few shows in the recent history of what's been routinely called TV's Golden Age, that are working with a deck this stacked. Only The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire, and creator David Milch's Deadwood attempted to cram this many figures into view. Some suffer from lack of shape and attention—poor, undeveloped Leon, he could be a show unto himself. Others are granted a surprisingly brief amount of screen time each week, if more character. Academy Award winner/Iconic American Thespian/Former Focker Dustin Hoffman, an easy guy to build a show around, is rarely in more than four or five scenes an episode. That's a bold move.

This week's fractured storytelling doesn't appear to get us any closer to a union of the various forces. It opens with Rosie in bed with the Bug, unsure if she'll ever get to ride Gettin'up Morning again after last week's crop-trashing incident. Rosie seeks out Stammerin' Joey to negotiate with the Old Man, a go-between of sorts. Joey, an agent, agrees to talk with him after she agrees to become his newest client. Which, obviously.

Walter the Old Man has bigger fish to fry. He walks and talks in the stable with a lawyer about the ownership of Gettin'up Morning, explaining the loose handshake deal he had in place with Delphi's owner. It seems the owner's banker has come to claim his heir. (Last week, we erroneously indicated it was his son.) Walter's lawyer calms his concerns, though this obviously won't be the last of this growing nuisance. Complicating matters just slightly, is Ronnie. After we spot him spilling his guts in an AA meeting, he approaches Walter to discuss getting back on Gettin'up Morning's mount. He's clean, sober, and focused, he says, and deserves the spot. And that makes him willing to undermine our Exercise Girl. Joey visits Walter shortly thereafter on behalf of Rosie, to little avail. Then, another meeting with Ronnie, clear-eyed and possessed, and suddenly Walter and Ronnie are shaking hands on a deal, and Rosie's been dismounted. Walter, stand-up crag mountain that he is, meets with Rosie later that day to let her down easy. They shake and part amicably, but Rosie, waifish lilac that she is, is devastated.

Luck's primary bromancers, Gus and Ace first appear to us discussing the finer points of windbreakers v. waxed jackets. Gus has purchased a stable-ready piece of attire for his man. Ace, weirdo oldster, wants to look like a high school track coach. Later, Ace arrives at a horse farm by helicopter to witness Claire's convicts-care-for-horsies program in person. Ace and Claire watch an injured horse, and slowly build their awkward love affair. After that touching encounter—honestly, the horse convicts storyline is a bridge too far, even for this very peculiar program—Ace visits the Indian gaming lobby and insists on exchanging pleasantries outside. It's a set-up: of course, someone is photographing him. Who's taking the shots? Doesn't matter, so long as there's a photo of that meeting for Mike to see.

But just such a photo may not be enough to compel Mike to buy Ace, Gus, and our muni derivatives hombre's scheme. Nathan Israel visits their archrival once more at his yacht, where they discuss the Indian gaming lobby and how naturally Ace and Mike's interests align. Mike, resourceful criminal mastermind that he is, is highly dubious. So is Israel's stomach for these double agent dealings. In these scenes, the big, breathy Michael Gambon nearly swallows Israel whole, like a Great White circling a guppy. And then, just a few scenes later, Israel gets chomped. After pleading his (and Ace's) case over and again, Mike still ain't buying. And he indicates that by slashing Israel across the face with a glass ashtray. Twice. How did he know he's being duped? In a Milch-ian turn of phrase: "Syntax." Ace and Gus, soft-brained codgers, suspect nothing while Israel is having his head caved in. "You're probably right, the kid's getting laid," Gus says back at the hotel.

Escalante is having pains, too. In his heart, Jo's is torturing him. In his head, there's a man installing a camera for Ace, so he can watch Pint of Plain 24-7, drilling a sound deep into his skull, disturbing his horses. Also disturbing his morning: A small boy named Eduardo. Jo, for some reason, pays this boy's a-hole uncle $10 to talk to his nephew, and soon, he's left the boy with them. After a full day at the track, rippling with resentment and boredom, Escalante eventually drives the boy home. There's an obvious parallel at work here: Escalante was once a wide-eyed Spanish-speaking boy in love with horses and the track. Eduardo's a narrative device, softening Escalante's soul for a moment; at day's end he offers the kid an opportunity to come back any time. Good thing, too, because he's going to be a father himself. Which Jo does eventually get around to revealing. And there are no fireworks in the scene, no anger, just a little tenderness. He calls her over, touching her belly and his unborn child. "Who's the papa?" he cracks. They've come to a détente, as Jo heads to bed. Escalante sits on the couch, vaguely satisfied, before we see a photo on the counter: it's a young Escalante, clutching a horse's reins. In the event you missed this metaphor, Luck has obligingly filled in the blanks for you.

As for the Degenerates, well, they confer at the diner, discussing Jerry's entrance to a poker tournament with hopes of a spot in the World Series of Poker. (This subplot is also very 2003.) Lonnie, the latest-joining member of this club, is going to look at another horse. Ever-cheery Marcus inquires about the horse joining 4A stables. Lonnie, feeling a little iced-out of the crew's dealings, is reluctant to let them in on it. Jerry bids adieu to play in his satellite tournament, while Lonnie visits Escalante at the stable for a word on his prospective horse. At the track, the boys watch Leon ride Lonnie's great hope, Niagara's Fall. "She's like a rocket ship," he says, as the horse bursts out of the gate. Only, after this brief burst, she comes up gimpy in her right leg. Leon slows it down and pulls off. Soon, the horse is carted off, like a wounded linebacker. Lonnie, assaulted by insurance-scamming-cougars and tied to numbskullish Renzo and bilious insult specialist Marcus all season long, just can't seem to catch a break. Though Lonnie's horse is hurt, she's not ready for the glue factory. She'll be a brood mare, he learns. Back in the motel, Renzo reads from the horse farm brochure while Lonnie plays it all back in his head. Lonnie, it appears, didn't do his due diligence before putting in his claim. It wouldn't behoove him to put pin this minor tragedy on Escalante. He didn't ask enough of him, and now he's stuck with a baby horse-making machine, presumably set for Claire's convict-tended farm.

And what of our aspirant Doyle Brunson, Jerry? Well, upon entering the casino for the poker tournament, he finds his beautiful dealer pal, Naomi. (You remember her, she nonsensically dealt at the private after-hours game at evil Lester's restaurant. Which was normal.) They sit at the same table, flirting and sending signals, until Jerry busts his girl with three 4s to her pair of kings. She's done but not burned. Instead, this very attractive and otherwise reasonable-seeming woman appears smitten with bedraggled Jerry. (The man hasn't changed his clothes once all season, by the way.) Within minutes they've gone from Texas hold 'em double entendres to pants-free driver's seat grinding. "Call that a split pot," Jerry gurgles post-completion. Hilarious. Later that evening, Naomi and Jerry return to the Oasis Motel to meet the boys. It's a brief chat. "She seemed nice," Renzo says, buffoonishly.

All in all, a bit of airy episode. Other than Israel's battered face and a new horse's introduction and quick exit, little moved forward. At the close, we get a brief montage: Ronnie aggressively pumping push-ups before crushing up more painkillers for the snorting; Leon laying in bed, a copy of Tony Robbins's Unlimited Power on his chest. Rosie polishing her boots, looking off into the middle distance; Ace creepily watching his horse from bed, via the just-installed webcam. There's no surge, no mystery, just a complex spider web of terse relationships. Are they going to thrash together or tear apart? Maybe both. It can't be neither.

The Week in Milch-ology: A Brief Context-Free Recap of Men Talking to Themselves
"That's it, c'mon! C'mon! C'mon! All the way home." -Lonnie, to himself, and his downed horse. (That's right, folks. Just one character spoke to himself this week. What show is this, anyway?)